It’s official. Sunset Park Chronicled has moved to its home, www.sunsetparkchron.com. You can still sign up for a feed, leave comments, search, and peruse. In addition, there will be sideshows and better multi-media storytelling. Come visit, and send feedback!

Though still in its beta infancy, the website allows for better multimedia content and, hopefully, better navigation for readers. But to maximize the advantages, I have to hear from you. What do you like? What do you hate? Do you find the categories helpful?

I am working through a few issues with images on the homepage, but I hope soon to have that kinks ironed out. As always, send feedback through comments or emails to sunsetparkchron@gmail.com.

Best,

Lisa

]]>https://sunsetpark.wordpress.com/2010/01/22/moving-on-up-sunset-park-chronicled-gets-new-website/feed/1lisarsTabula Rasa Gallery Hosts A Fundraiser for Haitihttps://sunsetpark.wordpress.com/2010/01/21/tabula-rasa-gallery-hosts-haiti-fundraiser/
https://sunsetpark.wordpress.com/2010/01/21/tabula-rasa-gallery-hosts-haiti-fundraiser/#respondThu, 21 Jan 2010 02:01:15 +0000http://sunsetpark.wordpress.com/?p=1243Continue reading →]]>Last week a devastating earthquake hit Haiti, demolishing the capital, Port-au-Prince, and crippling areas throughout the troubled country. Thousands died. One week later, a 6.1 aftershock made a tragic situation worse. In the midst of looting, hunger and torn families, NPR found one story with a bright spot–an employee and a guest trapped in pitch-dark elevator shafts side by side. They kept one another company, offered hope and survived. In that same spirit…

The Tabula Rasa gallery is asking Sunset Park and those throughout the city to reach out to strangers miles away to help raise funds this Saturday, January 23 from 1-4:30 pm. All the money raised will go to charity.

Local artists are donating work to be auctioned from the gallery at Saturday’s event. The back room presentation space will be used to hang the work in a display which will be constantly “turning over” as donations are made and new art replaces work being taken.

Anyone writing a check of $75.00 DIRECTLY to one of the designated charities can select an artwork 11″ x 14″ or smaller. Anyone donating $150.00 can select from these or a larger works. Any and all contributions are welcome. For those who can’t give, the gallery is also looking for volunteers for the event.

Tabula Rasa Gallery, 224 48th Street between Second and Third Avenues in Sunset Park, Brooklyn.

For Felix W. Ortiz (D), time has come for the Latino community to make its presence known in New York politics–and Ortiz thinks he can make that happen.

“The Democrats and Republican parties need to have a clear understanding of the major role that Hispanics are playing in politics today,” he toldCity Hall News.

Ortiz, familiar to Sunset Parkers from ballots and the type emblazoned on his Fourth Avenue Office, has his sights set on higher office. The Assemblyman of the 51st district, which stretches from Boerum Hill to Sunset Park, is looking towards a run for the office of Comptroller held by Tom DiNapoli or Kirsten Gillibrand’s Senate seat, City Hall News reported.

First elected to the state Senate in 1994, and in appointed 1998 to the National Conference of State Legislators Committee on Human Services. He subsequently chaired the Assembly Task Force on Food, Farm and Nutrition Policy. He now chairs the committee on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse and is a member of Correction; Labor; Rules and Economic Development, Job Creation, Commerce and Industry, according to the bipartisan Project Vote Smart, which also notes voting history and campaign finance records.

Ortiz has not made any final decisions about his next step, he said, but will open a statewide exploratory committee in March.

*Community leaders, representatives and non-profit executives have voiced opposition to a potential restructuring of Brooklyn’s legal services that would merge offices around the borough into a single entity, the Courier-Life reported.

The group gathered to strategize recommendations to the board of Legal Services, which will hear official plans to rework the structure of Brooklyn’s Legal Services offices at a March 9 board meeting and confirm or reject them at a meeting April 13.

Unannounced plans hint that the network of legal services may collapse into a single program run by the people of South Brooklyn, said Marty Needelman, a lawyer for North-Brooklyn based Brooklyn Legal Services Corporation A, which appears to oppose consolidation.

“We expect to use the information we are collecting to come up with a plan soon that will strengthen our ability to serve the clients and communities throughout Brooklyn,” Scherer told the Courier-Life. He did not go into further detail on the plans.

But many in the community feel those on the edges of the borough, or living on the edge, will find themselves forgotten if Legal Services reorganizes.

“Will people from Canarsie or Flatlands make the long trek to Downtown Brooklyn to seek legal services? I sincerely doubt so, as do the many community leaders and constituents who have sounded the alarm on this matter,” said Rep. Ed Towns (D-Williamsburg).

You’ve Got Mail: A Sneak Peek into Movie Choices, Courtesy of Netflix

* Have you seen the Curious Case of Benjamin Button? It’s the most requested movie on Netflix in the 11220 area code, according to a New York Times map of nationwide Netflix queues. Scroll through the map to see how 11220 and other nearby zip codes felt about the 100 most rented films, from Pineapple Express to The Wrestler, the 7th most rented movie in the 11220. You can compare Sunset Park’s taste against that of critics, too. I wondered as a perused if this spoke as much to Netflix use as movie taste. As far as I can tell, the map does not note the number of subscribers within a given area.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled “queue” as “que.”

]]>https://sunsetpark.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/in-the-news-potential-changes-to-legal-services-and-a-look-at-11220s-netflix-cues/feed/0lisarsThe Center For Family Life Offers Training and Opporunity for a New Careerhttps://sunsetpark.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/the-center-for-family-life-wants-you-to-go-to-beauty-school/
https://sunsetpark.wordpress.com/2010/01/18/the-center-for-family-life-wants-you-to-go-to-beauty-school/#respondMon, 18 Jan 2010 01:45:51 +0000http://sunsetpark.wordpress.com/?p=1178Continue reading →]]>Sunset Park-based non-profit the Center for Family Life has a new initiative called The Cosmetology School Project. Targeted at low-income individuals, the program hopes to provide a path to full-time employment for New Yorkers currently un- or underemployed.

Training will begin at one of two four-week training sessions, the first in February and another in April. Participants then enroll in an eight month cosmetology program. Applicants must be 17 or older, and hold a high school diploma, GED or demonstrate math and reading skills at an 8th grade level.

The program is completely free of charge. To find out more, you may visit the website or call 718-633-4823.

*NYC schools have gone mobile: the city this week announced an upgrade to Notify NYC that will allow parents to receive updates on school emergencies, dismissals, and closures by cell phones. The upgrade to this emergency system offers subscribers real-time updates on everything from snow days to school relocations in up to five zip codes by phone, email or text message. Interested? You can subscribe here.

*Speaking of schools, you can see how your local one fared at the New York Post website. You can sort the Post’s list by name, borough and other categories. Check out your school and report back–did it make the grade? Do you think your school is better, or worse, than the score reflects? Leave a comment!

*The MTA has mounted a new site that provides real-time updates on delays and service changes to New York’s 26 subway lines, meant to help regulars in its 468 stations keep on the go.

]]>https://sunsetpark.wordpress.com/2010/01/15/in-the-news-new-york-rolls-out-new-tools-to-help-new-yorkers-on-subway-and-in-schools/feed/0lisarsIMG_3246What To Do This Weekend in Sunset Park: An About Facehttps://sunsetpark.wordpress.com/2010/01/15/what-to-do-this-weekend-in-sunset-park-an-about-face/
https://sunsetpark.wordpress.com/2010/01/15/what-to-do-this-weekend-in-sunset-park-an-about-face/#commentsFri, 15 Jan 2010 02:56:47 +0000http://sunsetpark.wordpress.com/?p=1154Continue reading →]]>

Image by Clarity Haynes, on view at Tabula Rasa Gallery in Sunset Park.

Ready to switch up the regular Saturday afternoon routine?

Tabula Rasa, an art gallery that shows the work of new and established Brooklyn-based artists, is finishing up a group show called “About Face.” Stop by the show, hung in a turn-of-the-century carriage house, to see portraits and portrayals in various media before it closes on January 23rd. Tabula Rasa, 244 48th Street between Second and Third Avenues. Gallery open Thursday through Saturday 1-5pm, and by appointment.

Anything else happening in the neighborhood this weekend? Let us know (and include time, place, and date) at sunsetparkchron@gmail.com.

For 13 years the Vazquez family has watched Sunset Park change from the window of their three-bedroom apartment on 55th Street. This year, the shifting tides of New York real estate hit home.

Developer Galla Condominiums recently bought and converted to condominiums a dozen apartments in the 16-unit building at 546 55th Street where Carmen and Alex Vazquez live with their children. Each unit that goes up for sale marks one less rent-stabilized apartment in a neighborhood where such units are scarce.

As the number of rent stabilized units dwindle, long term residents find themselves living surrounded by housing that rents and sells at rates far beyond what many longtime and new immigrant residents in this working-class neighborhood can afford.

The median rent in this area of South Brooklyn is $981 per month, according to the 2006 American Community Survey for census area PUMA 4012, which includes the more affluent neighborhood of Windsor Terrace to the northeast.

Approximately 86.7 percent of renters pay $1,500 or less in monthly rent, according to the survey. This is reasonable by New York standards. Yet over half spent more than 30 percent or more of their gross income on rent. The federal government defines “affordable housing” as housing that costs less than a third of a family’s yearly earnings.

Sunset Park has no subsidized housing. Forty percent of rental units in the area are rent-regulated, compared with 45 percent citywide, said a 2008 report by NYU’s Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy. This means market rate units make up 41 percent of housing stock in the neighborhood, nearly double the citywide share. And the number is growing.

So rent-stabilized tenants hold on tight. The Vazquez family may by law remain in their apartment. The non-eviction plan under which their building converted to condominiums prohibits the landlord from forcing them out of their three-bedroom unit, for which they pay $960 per month.

“We’re not trying to push anybody out,” said landlord Jaime Davila. “Pay your rent, get what you are paying for—we’ll provide heat and hot water.”

Davila and his partners at Galla have, however, their sights set on the trio of three-bedrooms in the building. Though none of the tenants in these apartments have left, the Galla website advertises three bedroom properties for sale on 55th Street.

“We’re in the process now of working with some of the tenants who are going to be moving out in the next couple of weeks,” said Davila, who would not go into further detail.

Call it gentrification. Call it growth. But this South Brooklyn neighborhood that for years struggled with crime and poverty is, in the midst of a recession, attracting a new and more affluent population looking for more space, and lower prices.

On a sunny Saturday in October, prospective buyers passed in and out of the brand new plate-glass front door of 546 55th Street. Alex and Carmen lingered outside while locals walking by and passing in cars greeted the couple.

A neighbor drove by in a shiny black SUV, and shouted a hello at Alex. “They’re selling those?” he said. “I wish I could afford one.

“You can,” said Alex Vazquez. “They’re cheap.” He meant it.

Property values in Sunset Park, like rents, remain reasonable in comparison with much of Brooklyn, and a steal for those accustomed to Manhattan prices. Condominiums in Sunset Park average $438 per square foot, according to a September report from The Corcoran Group. Condominiums on average run $595 per square foot in Brooklyn.

“It’s a really great alternative to people being priced out of Park Slope,” said John Wescott, a salesperson at The Corcoran Group.

Wescott recently helped a Park Slope couple buy a three-bedroom apartment in Sunset Park for $348,000. A Sunset Park resident himself, Wescott lives in a brownstone his partner purchased several years ago. “He bought here because it was affordable,” said Wescott.

For many in a neighborhood where 25 percent live below the poverty line, however, the prices remain out of reach. Locals throughout the neighborhood see the potential that Manhattanites and Brooklyn migration may push Sunset Park’s working class base out of the neighborhood.

“We’d like to keep our community a working class community and affordable to the folks who live here and welcoming to the folks who want to move here,” said Jeremy Laufer, manager of Community Board 7.

But some local organizations and leaders ask, “affordable to whom?”

“That’s a huge question,” said Tarry Hum associate professor of Urban Studies at Queens College. Hum has written about urban issues in Sunset Park, including questions of housing and displacement.

She said stricter enforcement of existing laws and anti-harassment measures may help preserve housing affordable to the poor and working class who make up Sunset Park’s base.

Then she added, “We live in a market economy, and I’m not sure that the political will is necessarily there to protect affordable housing for low-income people. It’s a real dilemma.”

Carmen Vazquez plans to take full advantage of the protections granted to her under the law. Though she said her family will not purchase its apartment from Galla, she would like to own a home one day. In the meantime, she does not plan to go anywhere. Not yet.